WE had, before our quest began, heard of
faeries and banshees and the walking
dead; but neither Mr. Yeats in Sligo nor
I in Galway had ever heard of "the worst of them all," the Fool of
Forth, the Amadan-na-Briona, he whose stroke is, as death, incurable. As to
the fool in this world, the pity for him is mingled with some awe, for who
knows what windows may have been opened to those who are under the moon's
spell, who do not give in to our limitations, are not "bound by reason to
the wheel." it is so in the East also, and I remember the surprise of the
European doctor who had charge of an hospital in one of the Native States of
India, because when the ruler of the State came one day to visit it, he and
his high officials, while generous and pitiful to the bodily sick, bowed down
and saluted a young lad who had lost his wits, as if recognizing an emissary
from a greater kingdom.

In one of my little comedies "The
Full Moon," the cracked woman comforts her half-witted brother, saying of
his common-sense critics, "It is as dull as themselves you would be
maybe, and the world to be different and the moon to change its courses with
the sun." Those commonsense people of Cloon describe a fool as "one
that is laughing and mocking, and that would not have the same habits as
yourself, or to have no fear of things you would be in dread of, or to be
using a difierent class of food." May it not be the old story of the deaf
man thinking all his fellow guests had suddenly lost their reason when they
began to dance, and he alone could not hear the call of the pipes?

There is perhaps sometimes a confusion in
the mind between things seen and unseen, for an old woman telling me she had
often heard of the Amadan-na-Briona went on "And I knew one too, and he's
not dead a twelvemonth. It's at night he used to be away with them, and they
used to try to bring people away into the forth where he was.

"Was he a fool in this world too?
Well, he was mostly, and I think I know another that's living now."

I was told
by:
A Woman Bringing Oysters from the Strand:There was a boy, one Rivers, got the touch last
June, from the Amadan-na-Briona, the Fool of the Forth, and for that touch there
is no cure. It came to the house in the night-time and knocked at the door, and
he was in bed and he did not rise to let it in. And it knocked the second time,
and even then, if he had answered it, he might have escaped. But when it knocked
the third time he fell back on the bed, and one side of him as if dead, and his
jaw fell on the pillow.

He knew it was the Amadan-na-Briona did it,
but he did not see him - he only felt him. And he used to be running in every
place after that and trying to drown himself, and he was in great dread his
father would say he was mad, and bring him away to Ballinasloe. He used to be
asking me could his father do that to him. He was brought to Ballinasloe after
and he died there, and his body was brought back and buried at Drumacoo.

Mrs. Murphy:Cnoc-na-Briona is full of them, near Cappard.
The Amadan-na-Briona is the master of them all, I heard the priest say that.

There was a man of the MacNeills passing by
it one night coming back from the bog, and they brought him in, and when he
came out next day - God save the mark - his face was turned to his poll. They
sent then to Father Jordan, and he turned it right again. The man said they beat
him while he was with them, and he saw there a great many of his friends that
were dead.

The Spinning Woman:There are fools among them, and the fools we
see like that Amadan at Ballymore go away with them at night. And so do the
women fools, that we call lenshees, that means, an ape.

It's true enough there is no cure for the
stroke of the Amadan-na-Briona. There was an old man I knew long ago, he had a
tape, and he could tell what disease you had with measuring you, and he knew
many things. And he said to me one time "What month of the year is the
worst?" And I said, "The month of May, of course," "It is
not," he said, "but the month of June, for that's the month that the
Amadan gives his stroke." They say he looks like any other man, but he's leathan
- wide - and not smart.

I know a boy one time got a great fright, for a lamb
looked over the wall at him, and it with a big beard on it, and he knew it was
the Amadan, for it was the month of June. And they brought him to that man I was
telling you about, that had the tape. And when he saw him he said "Send for
the priest and get a Mass said over him." And so they did, and what would
you say but he's living yet, and has a family.

A Seaside Man:The stroke of the Fool is what there is no cure
for; any one that gets that is gone. The Amadan-na-Briona we call him. It's said
they are mostly good neighbours. I suppose the reason of the Amadan being wicked
is he not having his wits, he strikes out at all he meets.

A Clare Man:They, the other sort of people, might be
passing you close and they might touch you; but any one that gets the touch of
the Amadan-na-briona is done for. And it's true enough that it's in the month of
June he's most likely to give the touch. I knew one that got it, and told me
about it himself.

He was a boy I knew well, and he told me
that one night a gentleman came to him, that had been his landlord, and that was
dead. And he told him to come along with him, for he wanted to fight another
man. And when he went he found two great troops of them, and the other troop had
a living man with them too, and he was put to fight him. And they had a great
fight and at last he got the better of the other man, and then the troop on his
side gave a great shout, and he was left home again.

But about three years after that he was
cutting bushes in a wood, and he saw the Amadan coming at him. He had a big
vessel in his arms, and it shining, so that the boy could see nothing else, but
he put it behind his back then, and came running; and he said he looked wide and
wild, like the side of a hill.

And the boy ran, and the Amadan threw the
vessel after him, and it broke with a great noise, and whatever came out of it,
his head was gone then and there. He lived for a while after and used to be
telling us many things, but his wits were gone. He thought they mightn't have
liked him to beat the other man, and he used to be afraid something would come
on him.

Mrs. Staunton:A friend of mine saw the Amadan one time in
Poul-na-shionac, low-sized and very wide, and with a big hat on him, very high,
and he'd make shoes for you if you could get a hold of him. But there are some
say "No, that is not the Amadan-na-Briona, that is the leprechaun."

An Old Woman:The Amadan-na-Briona is a bad one to meet. If
you don't say, "The Lord be between us and harm," when you meet him,
you are gone for ever and always. What does he look like? I suppose like any
fool in a house - a sort of a clown.

A Man near Athenry:Biddy Early could cure nearly all things, but
she said that the only thing that she could do no cure for was the touch of the
Amadan.

Another:Biddy Early couldn't do nothing for the touch
of the Amadan, because its power was greater than hers.

In the Workhouse:The Amadan-na-Briona, he changes his shape
every two days. Sometimes he comes like a youngster, and then he'll come like
the worst of beasts. Trying to give the touch he used to be. I heard it said of
late that he was shot, but I think myself it would be hard to shoot him.

Ned Meehan of Killinane:The Amadan is the worst; I saw him myself one
time, and I'd be swept if I didn't make away on the moment. It was on a
racecourse at Ballybrit, and no one there but myself, and I sitting with my back
to the wall and smoking my pipe. And all at once the Amadan was all around me,
in every place, and I ran and got out of the field or I'd be swept. And I saw
others of them in the field; it was full of them, red scarfs they had on them.

I came home as quick as I could, and I
didn't get over the fright for a long time, but there he was all about me.

Meehan's wife say's:

I remember you well coming in that
night, and you trembling with the fright you got. And you told me the appearance
he had, like a jockey he was, on a grey horse.

"That is true indeed," says
Ned, and he goes on:

And one night I was up in that field beyond,
watching sheep that were near their time to drop, and I saw a light moving
through the fields beside me, and down the road and no one with it. It stopped
for a while where the water is and went on again.

And there was a woman in Ballygra the same
night heard the coach-a-baur passing, and she not hearing at all about the
lights I saw.

A Man at Kilcolgan:Father Callaghan that used to be in Esker was
able to do great cures; he could cure even a man that had met the
Amadan-na-Briona. But to meet the Amadan is to be in prison for ever.